Tax & Legal

The Supreme Tax Court decided that rental agreements between spouses are not generally considered as “fictitious transactions” even if the rental payments are returned to the business via intra-family money accounts (cycles).

The Münster Tax Court has rejected an earlier decree of the Federal Ministry of Finance according to which entrepreneurs based abroad who own a rented property located in Germany are treated as being resident in Germany if the otherwise exempt rentals are subject to VAT by way of a waiver pursuant to Section 9 VAT Act.

If a property with more than 250 square meters of living space is rented, losses incurred as a result of the rental cannot necessarily be offset against taxable income of the taxpayer. This was decided by the Supreme Tax Court in a case of rentals within the family.

Following a request for a preliminary ruling from the German Supreme Tax Court, the ECJ decided that the VAT exemption in connection with the letting of immovable property as provided in Article 135 of the VAT Directive may also apply to the letting of permanently installed equipment and machinery where that letting constitutes a supply ancillary to a principal supply of the lease of a building and if it constitutes from an economic point of view one single supply.

In a recently published decision, the German Supreme Tax Court held that land tax owed by the landlord but contractually passed on to the lessee is part of the rent and must therefore be added back in part to trading income subject to trade income tax.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that the reverse charge is applicable to the leasing of real property located in Austria because the Jersey based lessor, in lieu of own local staff to perform services relating to the letting, does not have a permanent establishment (fixed place of business) in Austria.

The Supreme Tax Court has held that the VAT exemption waiver on property rentals presupposes that the tenant can clearly separate the area used for taxable turnover from that used for tax-free activity, but the separation does not have to be documented by separate contract.